News

The ‘No Health without Mental Health’ report
raises awareness of the importance of liaison psychiatry teams
and recommends that each general hospital should have access to an
adequately funded service. The Royal College of Psychiatrists’
Centre for Quality Improvement has set up the
Psychiatric Liaison Accreditation Network (PLAN) to facilitate
development in liaison psychiatry services through a supportive
peer-review network. All liaison teams in the UK and Ireland
are invited to join and work towards improving the quality and
provision of their services.

Mental health, resilience and inequalities. This report
from the Mental Health Foundation argues that good, positive mental
health and emotional wellbeing leads to healthier lifestyles.
Produced in collaboration with the World Health Organisation
(Europe) and supported by the National Institute for Mental Health
in England, the report sets out how current policies and
programmes can be improved.

Healthy Mind, Healthy Body. This briefing from the NHS
Confederation looks at opportunities to improve quality and
efficiency in acute services by focusing on the needs of the
significant number of patients who also have mental health problems
complicating their care and discharge. It sets out some good
practice examples together with academic evidence to build a
business case for liaison psychiatry services.

New
Horizons Strategy announced. Care Services Minister, Phil
Hope, has announced a new strategy for helping the millions of
people who suffer from mental illness at some point in their
lives. “New Horizons” is a new strategy that will promote
good mental health and wellbeing, whilst improving services for
people who have mental health problems. It will build on the
National Service Framework for mental health which comes to an end
in 2009.

Educational resources

The
forum for mental health in primary care is a collaboration
between the Royal College of Psychiatrists and the Royal College of
General Practitioners. It aims to guide and promote good
practice in mental health care across generalist and specialist
health care services and influence and support the work of
practitioners.